Saturday, June 11, 2011

Spaced Invaders (198-)


Great comedy with a crappy name. Actually it's an alien invasion comedy was completely mishandled by the studio releasing it, this neat little film is a joy to anyone who’s seen it. The film was made independently under another name and then retitled by the studio who then botched the publicity promoting it as a wacky low brow comedy. (yea it made money, but not as much as it should have)

The story takes place on Halloween. A local radio station decides to play the Orson Welles Mercury Theater War of the Worlds. The broadcast is picked up by a space ship with a bunch of aliens who take this as the sign for invasion and they follow the signal and land…only to find no invasion. Having to deal with trick or treaters (they are mistaken for kids in great costumes), the locals and problems with their ship, the aliens have to find a way to get back home.

Way better than the poster and DVD cover would have you believe(see picture) this is a really wonderful little film. I remember going to see this with my brother and some friends when it opened in a nearly empty theater. No one was in the place. Those of us that were there really enjoyed ourselves. I liked the film so much that when it came out on video tape and I was at the video store I would press copies into the hands of people looking for films that aren’t the same old thing. More times than not they would come back raving about the film and someone would tak e the film out on the basis of the customers recommendation.

High art it’s not, but it is funny, and it does answer the burning question, what would Jack Nickelson be like if he was a friendly alien.

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